Club Med Cherating

2 holidays back to back within a month!

A family holiday, yea just the 4 of us, to Club Med Cherating, courtesy of Dearie's company - ie supposed to be his company trip but his very generous boss paid for me as well (kids are complimentary)

Drove there for a 3D2N trip. Drove half a day to a beautiful East Coast. Have not been to this side of the world.. nearest being Kuantan beach when I was barely 15. Have no recollection of that trip at all. I blame it on no blog opportunities last time! Haha

On the trip.. one world - fabulous! What could have made it better would be another night or 2 there! Hehe.. the kids loved it there.. TOTALLY! Which automatically makes Dearie & I happy coz when the kids are happy, they r not cranky. When they are not cranky, they are angels to be with. Albeit tiring as we need to chase up to them n their endless energy, it was a very enjoyable trip (made sweeter as we neednt fork our a single cent ^^)

The beautiful thing abt Club Med:
- once u step into the club, unless u wanna buy souveniors fr the shop, you can basically keep your wallet in the room coz EVERYTHING is free - from food, games, noodles, fruit juice, cocktails, mocktails, beer & wine!! The kids had their fair share of juices and ice creams! I had different types of coffee, juices and mocktails. Dear had abit of beer...something for everyone!

- meals are all of international buffet style with a variety that you'd be amazed!! Lots of food at fairly delicious preparation!

- staff, known as GOs, are unbelivably friendly and helpful. We later saw n heard that all staff stay inside club med (live at hotels that we stay in) and eat at the buffets that we do. The GOs mixes around with guest like friends and are all jolly & energetic! Ask for help anywhere and you wont be turned down.

- they have special arrangements for kids where kids are looked after by trained adults the entire day so that parents can enjoy adult activities. Anne loved this group called Mini Club Med where she joined a group of abt 10 other kids from all over in the activities arranged by the GOs. One Go takes care of abt 5 kids. Activities ranges fr colouring, cookie making, yoga, tv time, singing, snack time, swimming, etc. They have a younger group called Petite Club for kids between 8mths to 24 mths. But this is payable at Rm300 per day. They have professional childcare GOs for this where 1 GO takes care the max of 3 kids. We didnt let Jyn join this group as we felt he wouldnt enjoy it. So while Anne was with her Mini Club, Jyn was with us. Of course off and on, I went and had a peek to see how my darling girl was doing. And boy oh boy.. arent I proud to see that not only Anne wasnt crying at all, she participated in all the discussion and games and clearly enjoyed herself amongst the new company :)

- there were nightly performance by the GOs whereby every night's performance are different. After the performance, everyone would group together for some line dancing and chit chatting. Here, strangers act like close frens! No border, no age difference. Everyone just minggled and had fun. We joined the line dancing awhile on both nights and went to bed as we were all too tired after the wholeee day running

- the place was incredibly children friendly. Knowing that we have a 2yo with us, the hotel prepared a small baby bath tub for us in our room and a full set of baby J&J toietries for us!

- the room was really comfortable. Only down side is that the room was not cold enough. The explanation given to us was that its part of Club Med's effort to go green whereby acond temperature is set to abt 24deg and other than the rooms and dining areas, all other places are as close to nature as possible (no acond. Only fans). We requested for a fan for our room and was granted one :)

- the mobil reception at the whole place was crappy but thats ok as well as we were suppose to enjoy ourselves and not be hooked to such devices

- the tide (waves) was really reallllyyyyy strong. I stood on the beach for 10 seconds and got scared. Quickly went back into the club.. hehe.. nvr dared touch the sea water the whole 2 days.

- we didnt manage to play any of the adult games (flying trapeze, water sports, yoga, cinema, etc) as we were accompanying the kids most of the time

- the kids enjoyed all the water activities.. water guns, swimming in the morning, at noon, and at nite!

Overall, it was a really pleasant experience. We now understand why one would pay RM1,200 per person for a local holiday. Coz if $$ permits, I'd like to go again :)

A lovely month of holidays :D